Zefla closes the door in the young woman's face.  "Um.. nope."  Looking up at Burr, "Would you mind relocking that?  I see you have keys.  Maybe Giles can help her?"

She then walks over to the double doors again and turns back to Burr, "And if you wouldn't mind.. see if you can break these down?  We gotta figure out what that reading meant.  Oh hey Giles, dead corpse in her bed and crazy woman behind that door." pointing to the one she just left, "Maybe you could help her?  She hisses like a cat and walks on all fours.  But by the looks of it, the old woman sure wasn't helping her, she's filthy and looks like she's been tied down on that bed."

"What was that?"  Hearing feline hissing from back in the hallway, Soren tries to understand its meaning as if it were an actual cat (Speech of the Woods).

Hearing Zefla say "nope" and slam the door shut just as he steps into the hallway, Soren decides not to press it further, but instead summons Burr.

"There is a large, chest here in the bedroom where Lady Wachter's husband's body lies.  I have pulled it out from where it was concealed inside a closet, but it is locked.  We are looking for a treasure kept under lock and key along with the bones of an enemy.  Though come to think of it, I wonder if the bones of the enemy are in fact the recently stolen Bones of Saint Andral... anyway, can you bring the keys here and try to open it?  Or I can try."

He shakes his head wearily.  "And of course Lady Wachter's 'book club' summons devils.  Why not?  We may need to clear out the cellar too."

Burr came over with the keys but his mind was obviously on the demented young woman as he kept turning back towards the room.

" She thinks she's a cat.....that's terrible but its no reason to lock her up....I mean Old Morgan back home thought he was a badger....we just gave him lots of strawberries and jerky and a place by the fire and he was happy.  Are there any real cats here? She might be calmer in their company?"

He handed the keys to Soren, " Here."

(Assuming that Soren's Speech of the Woods reveals to him that the unseen female hissing at Zefla from the other room was not in fact actually speaking in cat language, but rather just a human imitating a cat, whether through voluntary acting or involuntary madness...)

"No.  No reason to lock her up," Soren echoes, agreeing.  "Even if she actually were a cat.  I do not know if there are any real cats here, though if so, the invisible flying fiend that Lady Wachter keeps would surely drive most actual felines mad.  As for the human female who is imitating a cat, she may be the Wachter daughter who has been troubled since her encounter with the Baron's family?"  Soren looks at Ernst for confirmation.

"The one Lady Wachter blamed the Baron's son for somehow addling her mind, though it may in fact have been his henchman Izek.  If her mind is addled... there is minor restorative magic that can heal infectious diseases.  Not-Father may know it.  Yet I do not know if it heals afflictions of the mind."

Soren tries to guess whether Lesser Restoration, which is not a spell he knows (though he could after a night's sleep), might work to cure delusion or insanity such as a human thinking they are a cat (without actually being a druid that can turn into one!).

Taking the keys from Burr, Soren readies himself, shield up in one hand, worried that more of the fiends that Lady Wachter apparently has everywhere may spring out of the chest.  Carefully, brings the keys near the chest and looks for one that seems the right size and shape.  If he finds one, he tries it.

Downstairs

The help look uncomfortable when asked about who is upstairs.  Finally, Vilka offers to Giles, "It's the young Lady Stella.  She... she is bewitched, I fear.  The poor girl is convinced she is a cat.  She won't speak, won't walk normal... its a battle to even feed her.  Oh, its just terrible.  And she was such a sweet, clever girl."

Soren:

 As Burr returns to Soren with the key ring, it is immediately obvious that only the the small silver key stands any chance of fitting the lock.  

Trying it, he hears the lock turn.  There are two loud clicks, and then the lid pops open.  Inside Soren and Burr see...

... It takes a moment for them to grasp just what it is they are looking at.  The inside of the trunk is lined with sheets of lead.  Inside, taking up most of the space, is a lumpy, grey-brown mass.  It almost resembles a wad of old leather, or some failed pottery experiment.  When it clicks, and they understand what they see, the effect is nauseating.  

Inside the chest is a bound and contorted, desiccated corpse.  The head is turned around at an unnatural angle, leaving only wispy, white hair visible.  The forearms are bent back and underneath the torso, and the hips appear to be dislocated and bent out of place.  The limbs are secured in place with bits of twine.  Positioned this way and crammed inside the trunk, it now resembles nothing so much as a goose, prepared for the oven.  Completing the illusion, an ornate wood and iron wand runs through the torso, sticking out of the chest cavity like a meat thermometer.  The tip of the wand is white stone, cut and shaped to look like a screaming skull, silenced with an iron bit.

 [Burr did not expressly say he was relocking the door as Zefla requested, but for now I will assume that was done.  Stella's door = locked again, for now.]

"Yeesh," Ernst says, peeking over your shoulders to look at the inside of the trunk.  Then he looks over at the body on the bed and says, in a friendly tone, "See, buddy?  It could have been a lot worse...".

Burr looked into the chest and his lip curled with disgust, but there were living people to help here...there wasn't much he could do for the two corpses.  He headed downstairs to see Giles and the servants.

" Do you have cats here? "

Burr was trying to think why the girl might have wanted to be a cat....perhaps if she was under a spell it was the casters wish....but if it was her own way of coping with trauma, perhaps she was drawing on her own experiences...which may mean beloved pets....

Besides he didn't trust himself upstairs with Ernst.....he really wanted to slap the hell out of that guy...

Downstairs, the two women shy away from Burr, moving to stand closer to Giles.  They look at Burr fearfully, then to Giles as if he might help keep his dangerous traveling companion in check. 

[They are currently charmed by Giles, but still see the rest of you are murdering vagabonds.]

( To be fair Burr currently sees himself as a murdering vagabond.....though he's a less regretful about the murder after seeing upstairs.)

Soren stares at the grisly contents of the chest, more certain than ever that slaying Lady Wachter had been for the best.  A fiend in woman's clothing...

"Zefla, the things we were told to look for...  Can this be one of them?  It seems... wrong.  Especially the screaming skull at the tip."

There is another item... Madame Eva had told them.. its nature is hidden from us; it can help you, but how? Look for a wealthy woman. A staunch ally of the devil, she keeps the treasure under lock and key, with the remainder of an ancient enemy.

"I think these must be the remains of one of Lady Wachter's enemies or else they would be buried or burned as humans do, or perhaps laid out fully clothed on a bed and preserved for years somehow as her dead husband is.  So this disturbing rod stuck through the corpse's chest must be..."

Soren breathes once and tries to avoid gulping.  He begins to reach for the wood and iron wand impaling the dead man, then stops himself, wondering uneasily if there is a trap here somewhere.  He prays for Silvanus' guidance and tries to look at the corpse and the evil-looking rod from every angle.

Soren's Perception plus Guidance to look for traps or wards:  23 + 3 = 26 (or 19 if Investigation).

Soren looks carefully at the chest and its contents.  He does not see anything that looks like a trap with the wand itself - though he can’t see inside the body into which the wand is lodged.  Could something dangerous be hidden there?

What he does see is inside the lid.  There was some sort of needle trap connected to the lock.  Had someone attempted to pick the lock, they would have suffered a nasty needle prick with unknown consequences.

Perhaps the trap on the lock was sufficient security?

((Giles had walked upstairs and left Amalthia and Vilka at the dinner table talking amongst themselves, he told them to wait for him while he checked out what is upstairs.))

After Giles reaches the top of the stairs, he looks to find Soren and Zefla, saying “I heard some strange sounds up here, what is going on?  I think we need to look in the basement too - - Vilka and Amalthia are occupied for an hour or so, you really missed out on the candied yams by the way, but we don’t want to linger too long, what do you have there?”  Giles walks over to Soren, looking over his shoulder.  

[Sorry.  I thought in the OOC thread you indicated Giles was immediately retreating back downstairs.]

In that case, rather than hiding near Giles downstairs, the two servants retreat from Burr into the parlor area.

In the master bedroom, Giles finds the same grisly scene described in #1511 and #1525.

Zefla looks over at the chest that Soren had opened and cringes.  "If that is a treasure... I don't even know how to finish that sentence.  No, that can't be what we are looking for.  Would it be the bones from the church?  I mean, that's probably a stretch seeing the state of this one."

Zefla is still fuming from the situation, but wants to try and figure things out as they go.  She leaves Soren as soon as she gives her comments and looks at the double doors again.  She calls down to Burr, "Hey, did you want to try and bust these open or just leave them?"  Turning to Giles, "Yeah, let's go see what the old bat had going on in the basement."

Burr looks annoyed but can't really blame the servants for being afraid of him, he looks around for a door they haven't tried yet and opens it.

Zefla calls down from above, he closes the door again and heads up....

For a long moment, Soren hesitates.  As un-treasure-like as this awful rod seems, he doubts anything else could be more clearly "under lock and key, with the remainder of an ancient enemy."  He takes a deep breath, praying for Silvanus' guidance once more in what is becoming a tic for him.

The druid pulls the rod from the corpse and holds it, trying to get a sense of what it is.

Burr searches the ground floor while the servants try to keep at least one room between him and them.  He manages to find a servants closet off of the back hall.  A very obvious hidden door in the back of the closet leads to a staircase down to a lower level of the house.  Before he can explore further, Zefla calls him back up to the double door on the second floor with the broken lock.  

DC 10 Athletics check to kick open the doorway...

As Giles looks over his shoulder, Soren grasps the wand and tries to pull it out of the corpse.  There is a little resistance but then the wand comes free with a wet, squelching sound.  Despite the noise, the wand is quite dry in Soren's hand.  Though the exact nature of this prize eludes him for the moment, he can feel magical power radiating from this piece of iron and wood.

As Giles and Soren wonder at what this device could be, a snapping and twanging sound erupts from the trunk.  The corpse lurches up and over the side, joints re-locating themselves and twine snapping as it rips free of its bindings.  The hips pop back into place with dry clacks! and the head reorients with a rapid-fire cracking of vertebrae.  Soren and Giles find themselves staring into a mummified face, eyes pin-pricks of red in inky dark sockets, lips drawn back over a mouth full of teeth, with elongated upper canines.  

Sensing weakness, the creature grasps Ernst, draws him close, and tears into his throat with its fangs.  Ernst screams and blood sprays across the bedroom walls.  As it drains the spy, color and volume return to the creature's body.  Muscles expand, skin regains a flesh-like, (if pale) tone, and quickly you are faced with a tall, naked man.  He looks 40ish, with long dark hair going gray at the temples.  As he lowers the body of Ernst, you see his mouth, neck and chest are all covered in spilled blood.

As you brace yourselves to attack or defend, the figure looks behind him...  then tosses Ernst at you and hurls himself back out the upstairs window with a crunching of wood and glass.  Fragments rain down to the cobblestones below as the creature vanishes out the window.

Soren is left holding the magic wand, while the body of Ernst lolls at your feet, half his throat missing.

Athletics- 18

Burr has no trouble throwing open the double doors with swift heel-kick, the lock and handle coming completely out of one of the doors.  They fly open to reveal a library.  Bookshelves hug the walls, but most of the shelves are bare. Other furnishings include a desk, a chair, a table, and a wine cabinet. The room has an irregular shape, and none of its angles seem quite right, as though the shifting of the house has set the whole place on edge.

As if in echo to his breaking of the door, Burr and Zefla hear a scream and then the sound of glass shattering from the master bedroom.

(Whoa)

Hearing the scream, Zefla runs into the master bedroom to see the carnage of Ernest at Soren's feet and the wand in his hand, frozen in shock to the spot, "What the hell just happened now?  I thought he was sort of on our side?"

Burr followed Zefla, arriving he allowed himself a slight smile at apparently no longer being the only murderer in the building....